Charity Detox

Charity Detox

Article excerpt

CHARITY DETOX

By Robert D. Lupton (HarperOne, 2015)

In Robert Lupton's follow-up to his popular Toxic Charity, the author weighs the future of effective efforts to reduce poverty. Echoing themes of his previous work and drawing from a wide and sometimes wonderful collection of stories and experience, Lupton insists that church handouts do little for those who are poor and, in fact, can do harm.

There's a lot to like about this book. Lupton writes in an accessible way--this is a book for people in the pews and their local leaders--as he moves between his Christian faith and his passion for free market capitalism. He effectively confronts popular practices and assumptions and challenges churches to rethink their strategies, inviting them to engage on a deeper and more meaningful level. In many ways, it is inspiring.

But the book is not without disappointment. First, there is no mention of the Catholic Church and its robust, diverse, and perhaps unmatched efforts to alleviate and reduce poverty. …